BEYOND LOGIC

Mahindren had asked me if, "In the first few years of travel, did you see it as Agathiyar's guidance? Did you see it as a spiritual experience or take a logical stand?" among several other questions that Agathiyar pushed him to put together and ask me on Chithirai Pornami day when we gathered to conduct puja at AVM.

Logic does not hold water in matters related to the Siddhas. They defy logic and science. One can only watch with awe and astonishment, as I told him. Let me list all that took place that goes beyond logical thinking and explanation.

In sitting before the Nadi reader, he tells me that based on the thumbprint I gave, he had retrieved three stacks of Nadi or predictions of which one could be mine, and he went ahead to read a small portion from each until I agreed that what he read referred to me. Then he tells me that Agathiyar had kept a record of my past, present, and future, and goes ahead to read it to me. The writings, supposedly made thousands of years ago, are copied onto fresh, treated and preserved dried palm leaves each time whenever earlier copies are in a state of decay. The writings are inscribed with the tip of a sharp metal stylus, in the same tradition, since time immemorial, and read by those in the Valluvar clan. He goes on to read out and run my story before me, the past, present, and future. Even before I took up writing my biography in these pages, Agathiyar had already done it. He took me to my past, exposed my present, and showed me my future. What do you make of it? Logic does not hold water here.

Asking me to visit Tavayogi's Kallar ashram, he had Tavayogi take me places that he listed in my Nadi. Agathiyar told me that he would open his eye at Agasthiyampalli. And so I sat with much anticipation, wanting to believe that he would open his eyes in the granite statue of him that is said to have been installed by King Kubera from the Asura clan at the start of Kali Yuga. What do you make of it? Logic does not hold water here. Here stands a statue that is some 5107 years old and still standing, although aged and worn down now.

Photos taken in 2009 by Varadaraj of Bronze Creative, Swamimalai, who made a replica of this statue in bronze and sent it over to AVM on 2 January 2010

Agathiyar opens his eye to look at me, not both his eyes, but only the left. What do you make of it? Logic does not hold water here. The sculptor must definitely either sculpt the statue with both eyes open or with both eyes closed, never one eye open and another closed. And since Agathiyar had "forewarned" me that he would open his eyes to see me, I took the additional trouble and time to gaze long and hard at him as I entered his temple. His eyes were definitely sculpted shut! 

Then he throws in a bonus at our next stop, his temple at Papanasam, which surprised me as he did not ask me to be on the lookout here. He opened both his eyes in his granite statue this time. But it was very much real and human and not sculpted this time around! What do you make of it? Logic does not hold water here. If one could say that, since he had hinted at the miracle that was to take place at Agasthiyampalli, and that my mind was playing to his tune, this time around, he caught me by surprise. My mind was caught off guard!

Agathiyar kept a witness by my side on both occasions. Tavayogi saw it too, for he hurried me out of these places, telling me that they would show their wonder only for a second. 

When he came in the form of his bronze statue to my home, a replica of that of his at Agasthiyampalli in 2010, after having me commission it to be made in Swamimalai and brought over, he opened his eyes in the presence of my family and Jnana Jothiamma, who was visiting us in 2013. My daughter, who took photos of the puja, ran down from her room shortly after the puja was over and, panting and speechless, showed me the photos. Agathiyar's eyes were wide open during the libation or abhisegam that we did. What do you make of it? Logic does not hold water here. 

Even before this, he had on several occasions opened his eyes in his paintings.

Agathiyar, a day before his arrival as the statue, told me that he would walk the ground and bless all those gathered by coming into me, while my soul would enter his statue. Soon, he came whenever he sent a stranger knocking on my door, asking to see Agathiyar's statue. Though they were first-time visitors to us, they were obviously known to Agarhiyar, for he told me later that whoever came by my home asking for him was sent by him. I was to allow them in. And thus he began to use me and my home to carry out his lilas. 

In the wake of the pandemic, when the Nadi readers returned to their homeland, and as both my gurus in physical form had gone into Samadhi, Agathiyar began to frequent his visits, now coming through other devotees too, and continued to guide us further. He still comes whenever the need arises and when we conduct a puja. How do you explain all these?